“Home prices in the U.S. fell 5.9 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, the biggest decline since 2009, as foreclosures added to the inventory of properties for sale.” Read the full article at Bloomberg
State Street Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. profited during the financial crisis by borrowing $200 billion almost risk-free from the Federal Reserve under a program intended to rescue money-market mutual funds. The Fed lent State Street a total of $89 billion to buy securities from the funds in 2008 and 2009 after the credit crisis […]
The planned takeover of NYSE Euronext by Germany’s Deutsche Börse AG on Tuesday cleared a regulatory hurdle that has thwarted prior cross-border deals centered on enterprises deemed critical to the U.S. The exchange companies said that their planned $16.9 billion tie-up drew no objection from the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, of […]
“U.S. banks increased lending for the first time in three years during the second quarter of 2011, a modest 1% increase from the previous quarter, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Tuesday. But for the second quarter in a row, banks’ total revenue dropped in the quarter ending in June, a development FDIC officials attributed […]
Capital One is the latest bank accused of being “too big to fail.” A proposed $9.2 billion purchase of the online bank ING Direct would make Capital One the fifth-largest bank in the United States with more than $200 billion in deposits. But before this acquisition can be completed, it requires clearance from the Federal Reserve, Capital […]
“As Bank of America’s stock skids toward levels it has not seen since the credit crisis, one is reminded of a lesson from that time: sometimes banks need to raise capital, even when they think they don’t need it.” Read the full story here
“In his excellent comment “Star traders, rip-offs and old-style bankers” (August 19), John Plender observes that universal banks take excessive risks in their various trading activities. Excess risk-taking is due to a flawed focus in banking on raw return-on-equity measures and is greatly encouraged by government guarantees that allow bankers to benefit from the upside […]
“Goldman Sachs Group Inc. confirmed Monday that its chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, and other executives hired outside lawyers to advise them after the U.S. Senate referred a report on the bank’s activities to the Justice Department earlier this year.” Read the full article at The Wall Street Journal
“Chinese banking officials said Bank of America Corp. will keep at least half of its 10% stake in China Construction Bank Corp., disappointing investors who hoped the largest U.S. bank by assets would sell more of the Chinese lender’s shares.” Read the full article at the The Wall Street Journal
“The moves come as S&P faces questions about its controversial downgrade earlier this month of long-term U.S. debt and as the Securities and Exchange Commission and U. S. Justice Department look closely at the conduct of S&P, as well as other major credit rating firms, for their roles in developing mortgage-bond deals that helped to […]
“The number of American households that fell behind on their mortgages increased slightly in the second quarter from the previous quarter, according to a survey released Monday, an unwelcome sign for the U.S. economy.” Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal
“Lackluster economic data and weeks of stock-market gyrations are spurring forecasters to cut projections for U.S. growth for the second half of the year and beyond.” Read the full article at The Wall Street Journal
The revelation that the Securities and Exchange Commission had a history of destroying documents has once again raised questions about how well the agency has exercised its enforcement authority. Although Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone described the policy as “Orwellian,” the practice looks more like corner cutting to avoid cumbersome federal regulations on document disposal […]
Tough new anti-fraud and manipulation rules for futures and swaps that came into effect last week have caught trading firms unprepared for a coming crackdown. Traders are crowding into seminars and some firms are stepping up investment in surveillance technology as they seek to catch up with the rules passed last month by the Commodity Futures […]
“Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, has come under increasing pressure from the Obama administration to drop his opposition to a wide-ranging state settlement with banks over dubious foreclosure practices, according to people briefed on discussions about the deal.” Read the full story at The New York Times
“Record-low yields on U.S. Treasuries show traders expect Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to signal as soon as this week that the central bank will begin a third round of asset purchases to boost the economy, a scenario the world’s biggest bond dealers said is unlikely. Barclays Plc said 10-year yields indicate traders have priced […]
Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. were the reigning champions of finance in 2006 as home prices peaked, leading the 10 biggest U.S. banks and brokerage firms to their best year ever with $104 billion of profits. By 2008, the housing market’s collapse forced those companies to take more than six times as much, $669 billion, […]
“Tough new anti-fraud and manipulation rules for futures and swaps that came into effect last week have caught trading firms unprepared for a coming crackdown.” The Financial Times http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4c26ebf0-c9d2-11e0-b88b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1VhR1eRNo
“Banking regulators should consider temporarily lowering capital requirements in an effort to boost the feeble supply of credit to the economy, according to a top official at the Bank of England.” Read the full story at The Financial Times
“In recent weeks, lawyers and Wall Street trade groups have gathered in Washington to ponder the next big case. Lawyers branded one meeting, held by the United States Chamber of Commerce, as ‘Dodd-Frank Excesses,’ according to two people who were notified of the meeting.” “Until now, Wall Street relied largely on an army of lobbyists […]
“Global economic policymakers who looked in the medicine cabinet this week as their patient began to show signs of a recessionary relapse will not have liked what they found. Some of the best treatments have run out and many of those that remain are experimental or have unpleasant side effects.” Read the full story at Financial […]
“Rising funding costs for European banks are stoking fears that they could be forced to cut back lending and drag down the already struggling world economy.” Read the full story at Financial Times
“The Securities and Exchange Commission did not have authority to dispose of investigation documents that the agency had been routinely purging since 1993, the National Archives and Records Administration said.” Read the full story at The Washington Post
“Unemployment rates rose in July in more than half the states for the second straight month, evidence that job growth remains weak nationwide.” Read the full story at The Washington Post
“… for a coterie of economists who have studied decades of downturns, the recovery from the most recent recession is likely to be one of the most difficult and protracted in U.S. history, simply because of the recession’s unusual nature.” Read the full story at The Washington Post
“In an 80-page letter to federal regulators, a former Moody’s senior vice president says the firm systematically squelched its analysts’ private doubts to keep deals and profits flowing.” Read the full story at The Washington Post
“Confidence in the sputtering US economy took another blow as a raft of grim data on manufacturing, inflation, lay-offs and housing added to escalating fears over global growth.” Read the full story at The Financial Times
“Fear that the US economy is like an aircraft – and has a “stall speed” at which it will suddenly lose traction and tumble – has been an important influence on both investors and the US Federal Reserve as they fret about a deluge of bad economic data.” Read the full story at the Financial Times
“Bank of America — still struggling to iron out the portfolio of bad loans it acquired by buying the giant mortgage lender Countrywide Financial in 2008 — is an extreme case, but it is not alone. Just three years after the financial crisis drove some of the biggest names in finance to the brink of […]
If the Commodity Futures Trading Commission receives the funding it’s asking for, the once-niche National Futures Association will be given an unprecedented role in overseeing major banks’ activities in the swaps and futures markets. If, as is entirely possible, the CFTC fails to get its funding, the NFA’s authority will likely be even greater. Read […]
“NYSE Euronext has stepped up has stepped up its battle with CME Group for the interest-rate futures market, luring three new clearing members to its five-month-old venture that aims to break the Chicago group’s near-monopoly on the market.” Read the full story at The Financial Times
It’s the kind of thing that the Securities and Exchange Commission might want to look into. First the company froze out investors with small holdings, cashing them out at a very low price. Within days, it began confidential talks seeking to find a buyer. It took a few months, but the net result was that […]
“The Justice Department is investigating whether the nation’s largest credit ratings agency, Standard & Poor’s, improperly rated dozens of mortgage securities in the years leading up to the financial crisis, according to two people interviewed by the government and another briefed on such interviews.” Read the full story at The New York Times
U.S. Representative Barney Frank has asked the Federal Reserve to extend its examination of Capital One Financial Corp.’s purchase of ING Direct USA. “This proposed purchase would create the fifth-largest bank in the United States,” Frank, the senior Democrat on the Financial Services Committee wrote in the letter to Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke dated today. “For this […]
Federal and state regulators, signaling their growing worry that Europe’s debt crisis could spill into the U.S. banking system, are intensifying their scrutiny of the U.S. arms of Europe’s biggest banks, according to people familiar with the matter. Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal
“When the government announced in April that the economy had grown at a moderate annual pace of 1.8 percent in the first quarter, politicians and investors saw evidence that the nation was continuing its recovery from the depths of the financial crisis. The White House called the news “encouraging” and the stock market extended its […]
“In order to receive money from the Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program at the height of the financial crisis, banks had to agree to pay a 5% dividend on the preferred stock they issued to Treasury in return for the government’s assistance. But 163 banks deferred their payments.” Read the full story at the Wall […]
“The U.S. government’s auditing regulator voted Tuesday to explore whether companies should have to change their outside auditors every several years, with the aim of improving audit quality and auditors’ independence from their clients.” Read the full story at Wall Street Journal
“What is it about August? Though it’s only Aug. 17, the U.S. economy has already been downgraded twice. One of those downgrades was ridiculous. The other was serious.” Read the full story at Wall Street Journal
U.S. regulators given new powers to dismantle “too-big-to-fail” financial firms are still working to draw up so-called living wills — a central component of the toolkit needed to prevent future bailouts. While the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. gained the authority in the Dodd-Frank Act to seize and unwind systemically important firms, the agency is still […]
Star banker Todd Edgar and his team of nearly a dozen fellow commodities traders are to leave Barclays as part of a stream of cuts designed to shed overheads and put the UK bank on target to hit profit targets…. People close to the situation said it had become untenable for BarCap to employ prop […]
“Wondering what the Obama administration is going to do about the jobs crisis? So, it seems, is everybody else. Even the Obama administration.” Read the full story at The Washington Post
“So riddle me this: How did we go from blaming “banksters” for all our financial ills to now casting teachers, cops and firefighters as overpaid government slackers who are keeping an economic recovery from picking up steam?” Read the full story at Reuters
“The stock market’s recent wild swings have unsettled many investors, but they have led to record profits for high-frequency traders following months of disappointing returns, industry analysts and money managers said.” Read the full story at the Wall Street Journal
“OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.” Read the full article here: Warren Buffet’s Op Ed in The New York Times
“The Federal Reserve’s announcement last week that it intended to keep credit cheap for at least two more years was a clear invitation to Americans: Go out and borrow. But many economists say it will take more than low interest rates to persuade consumers, a crucial driver of the nation’s economy, to take on more debt.” […]
“They were never going to attract outpourings of sympathy from the general public. But the job cuts that have hit whole echelons of the world’s biggest banks in recent weeks have not only attracted little compassion, they have barely been noticed at all amid the seesawing global markets and predictions of economic gloom.” Read the […]
Bank of New York Mellon Corp., facing increasing allegations it improperly charged public pension funds for currency trades, favored other clients with red-carpet treatment and better pricing, a state attorney general alleges.” Read the full article at the Wall Street Journal
“Barely two years after the financial crisis ended, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke were back at it about a week ago. They were working the weekend phones with their counterparts in Europe, urging them to use overwhelming force to contain the continent’s spreading debt crisis, which was unnerving […]
“Last week, the Federal Reserve announced it was lowering its forecast for the U.S. economy. The Fed now sees signs that economic growth is decelerating, job creation is soft and that deflation — not inflation — is the greater threat. In response, the Federal Open Market Committee took the unprecedented step of declaring they will […]
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